How to Get the Best Battery Life From a Laptop Computer

Series Summary

Computers are complex machines built upon very simple principles. They perform arithmetical operations millions of times over to transform digital information moving at lightning speed into usable human data. A personal computer's job is to help a user create, manipulate, deliver, receive or delete media content. Nevertheless, these fundamental functions mimic human ability in some surprising ways. Therefore, the computer is increasingly becoming an engine of the imagination, a platform for the digital life. Computer technology is an ever changing problem for everyone. A new and improved computer comes out ever other day. A computer is an investment that will keep running smoothly with proper maintenance. In this free video series, learn how to keep a computer running smoothly. Learn about getting optimal battery life from a laptop computer, inserting pictures and backgrounds into Microsoft Word documents and adding and importing contacts in Outlook. Find out how to install a brand new hard drive into a computer, changing user privileges in Vista and burn files to CDs and DVDs. Finally, discover how to block unwanted Internet sites and become a web designer.

Video Transcript

"Hi. My name is Dave Andrews. Today I'm going to show you how to get the best battery life from your laptop computer. To begin, let's go to the computer. As you can see, I have a laptop here that's attached to a monitor, so what you're seeing on this monitor is my laptop. Click on the start button on the bottom, which is this little round button, and we're going to select the control panel. Now control panel can come up on one of two ways. It'll either come up with the new Vista look, which is like this, or it can come up with the Classic view. You can change by clicking on these buttons. We want the classic view. Find, in this list, power options. This pulls up the power options for your PC. You have options down here, such as choose to when to turn off the display, and change when the computer goes to sleep, and change the brightness. Let's start by choosing when to turn off the display. Mine is set to never, but one way that you can save a lot of power on your laptop is by turning off the display when it's not in use. On the battery, let's have it turn off the display after three minutes of not use, of not using it. Let's have it put the computer to sleep after twenty minutes of not using it. Save these changes. One of the best tips to get the best life out of your battery is to change the display brightness. Let's select on adjust the display brightness, battery, let's drag it down to be a little bit darker. You won't see this change on my monitor, but on your laptop screen, you'll see your display get physically darker. My name is Dave Andrews and I've just shown you how to get the best battery life out of your laptop PC."